Mark Darrah, executive producer of the Dragon Age franchise over at BioWare, made the surprise announcement this morning of Dragon Age III: Inquisition. The third game in the franchise remains shrouded in secrecy, but Darrah wanted to beat the rumor mill and get the game's name out there before people built their own skewed expectations. In development for over two years, can we expect a Dragon Age release before the next generation of consoles arrive in 2013?

Regardless of actual game details, Darrah did want to make it clear his team was paying attention to the community's feedback:

"Part of that effort has involved you, our fans, and the feedback you´ve provided for Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and their DLC. We´ve visited message boards, read reviews, and we´ve gone to events to have direct face to face conversations with some of our most passionate fans. We´ve been listening, and we will continue to listen."

We certainly hope Darrah weighs opinions evenly and not slanted towards reviews, because while the community at large was unusually disappointed in the direction Dragon Age II took, reviews were highly favorable and disappointingly uncritical. That said, there was still a minority that loves Dragon Age II more than Origins, and which camp Darrah decides is more important could result in the future direction of the franchise.

Darrah did let slip one major detail for Dragon Age III: Inquisition: it's being built on an entirely new engine. Using DICE's Frostbite 2 engine as a foundation, BioWare is building something fresh for Dragon Age III in order to, "deliver a more expansive world, better visuals, more reactivity to player choices, and more customization." Does this mean we'll see a return to character creation, rather than pre-built protagonists? Doubtful, due to the Shepard popularity factor, but time will tell.

It's about time! Dragon age origins was great. dragon age II was tooo short!!!!! Hopefully they will give us much more playing time for the buck this time around. And Just MAYBE let the player create the companions they want to adventure with and NOT pre-set choices that really sucked in the first two dragon age games.

Frostbite 2? Okay now I'm interested, sounds like it could be a split release between current and next.

Yeah, DA3 is set for release late 2013..

According to rumours which are based on that initial leaked document Microsoft are planning to launch the next Xbox in September 2013 so that console will definately be out..

That launch window was also given when journalists asked how a delay in manufacturing the IBM Oban processor would affect the launch of the next Xbox, it was at this point they were told that Microsoft have about 2 months to solve the issues or the September 2013 launch will be delayed..

Heh so overall my post was an incredibly long winded way of saying, yes you are probably correct in that prediction..

The story was the best I've seen from all the the Bioware games and the gameplay was fun. I'm not marking it down to "the worst game ever" or "average" because it had repeating environments and shitty graphics. It's about time the people who liked the game were heard more than the butt hurt little whiners who constantly complain. Because I've quite honestly had enough with people bitching at Bioware.

when bioware created DA2 with a low budget and expected it to sell just because their last game was a succes they deserve the bitching. I disagree in that it was horrible or great it truly was average for a large part of the gamers but the horrible part is that it was a part of a great series and now the second game can never be redone. I guess that is why da2 was judged harder then it should have been.